The problem with adoption

Before you start reading let me say I am against animal cruelty and would love to live in a world where animals are respected and treated with love. This is not an article to motivate puppy mills or to shop, it is the exact opposite. The main reason is to show what is wrong and how to change it so more people will adopt instead.

I have always been in love with the concept of adopting instead of buying, but let´s be honest there are reasons people shop instead. Before I start let me explain that I would not focus on the looks of the dogs but rather on the people that is in charge of adoption.

There is a reason behind everything, but sometimes those reason lack of logic or are the cause of the failure in the system. Trying to adopt a dog is harder than anyone may think. It is not enter the shelter and leave with a dog kind of process. Recently I tried adopting a giant schnauzer. This eight months old girl was left alone in a bank. Her owners lacked of sympathy and left her alone. A woman found her and called the adoption center. The dog is still on the bank waiting to be adopted. I texted, send an inbox and finally called her; all in less than an hour. On the phone I told her that I would love to adopt her right away. She asked where will the dog be living, an important question, I told her that the puppy will be living in another city with my family , with a garden and with Jack, another giant schnauzer that loves all puppies and children. I didn’t want her to live with me in an apartment with no garden or place to run and my family would be more than happy to add a new member to the portrait. She didn’t like the idea, the reason being she needed to visit the dog and see if she liked me. Most people, including me aren’t fond of the idea of letting strangers inside your house since it implies danger and I didn’t understand why you would want a giant dog living in a small apartment just for your own good. I thought it didn’t make much sense since any place is better than being a baby alone in the streets. She told me the dog would need to be sterilized. I am against this for personal reasons. Two of my dogs underwent this procedure. With Sexy, the miniature schnauzer it did more harm than any good as it did with Jack. Jacks´s cancer was accelerated and when asked why the doctor told us the reason was his lack of testosterone caused by his lack of testicles. I understand the logic behind this process, but let me tell you if you do it to stop your dog from humping it won’t work. My dogs will still do it after the surgery and continues to do it. I told her I will do it where my family lives and with the family vet I got a no for an answer they wanted to do it with another doctor in another city. I don’t trust doctors that easily with my dogs.

This wasn’t the first time I encountered this problem. One time I saw a black cat for adoption. Some may not know that black cats and dogs are the least ones adopted and often get killed. I went for the cat, but they wanted me to bring everyone that will be living with the cat to meet him and see if the feline would like us. It was impossible to bring my roommates since some work more than ten hours a day. The cat wasn’t adopted. Before that I checked another adoption program. I went for a dog I specifically saw, but they told me I didn’t get to choose that they would choose for me.

Did you see the problem? It is not that people don’t want to adopt. I get many messages and meet people that would love to adopt, but one of the problem is the system. It makes me mad with rage that a person got to adopt cats easily because he was a veterinarian student, but they didn’t know he used these cats to feed his snake. The cats were given to the snake alive. I am not saying all people in charge of adoption make it hard, some make it just right and the good owners get to leave with a new friend, but others make it hard and then complain that people shop. If someone feels lonely and wants a partner for company but can’t adopt chances are they will shop. There is a reason even TV shows get to make fun of this, because it is real. Modern family was one of these shows, a couple wanted to adopt a cat and was told they weren’t fit to have a cat but they already had an adopted child.

It is understandable that people will be cautious to give an animal easily, but sometimes this gets to a level where it gets out of hand and almost ridiculous. Instead of treating every candidate as a bad one treat them as a good one and analyze them from that point on because right now there are animals alone and humans alone but can’t meet because of a system that fails.

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I have to agree with you. I work in the veterinary field and work with a local shelter and nonprofit rescue. We are lucky because both of these organizations do not have many loopholes potential owners have to jump through. However, like you pointed out this is not the case most of the time. An aquantince of mine recently wanted to rescue a lab from a rescue group and shared his story with me. It was similar to what you describe above. He went as far as having a walk through his home. There were multiple home “adjustments” he needed to do. Also because he is a cop and works long hours they were not comfortable with the amount of time the dog would spend outside. Even though he planned on having a dog walker come that was simply not good enough. Long story short he never rescued a lab through them. This is a serious flaw in the system and it needs to be changed.